The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi all, I hope you are doing well.

    I was working through Infant Eyes by Wayne Shorter and I had a couple of question about some of the chords if anyone can help?

    For example in bar 4 on one sheet I have A7#5 (b9). The two melody notes are Bb and F (b9 and #5). However on another sheet I see it noted as A7b9 (13). This seems a fairly big difference in how you interpret the chord and then approach playing over it? I can't quite tell how it is played on the recording, the feel so is ambiguous either seems to work for me, however it is several rungs above my skill level so that may explain it!

    Also I am assuming that the various occurrences of Major7#11 chords (where the #11 is the melody note) imply that we are thinking of #11 as an extension on a Major 7 with a standard 5 still in the chord? So for E major7#11 it would be E root, C fifth, D# maj7, A# sharp eleven as the top note. If notated as Major7b5 then the C would be omitted in the voicing?

    With relation to some Wayne's other tunes, am I correct in seeing a chord noted as say B Alt that it implies a variety of choices in the alterations while a chord noted B7#5(#9) is suggesting a more specific voicing with those alterations only as the composer intended? Sometimes with either occurrence the melody note is not an alerted note so is hard to tell. Or is an Alt chord and a noted chord seen as interchangeable?

    Thanks in advance!

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Good excuse to learn this one

  4. #3

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  5. #4

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    Babaluma -

    The recording's playing an A13b9. You can hear him play the Bb and the F# together. I've looked at various lead sheets and there are lots of varieties of the A7. There's a 7b9, a 7#9, a 13, and a couple of 13b9's.

    It's not the only recording, of course, You Tube's got plenty.

    Look, jazz is fluid. Shorter himself may have brought one version into the studio and the pianist played it differently when it came to recording. Who knows?

    If you don't mind my saying it, you're getting bogged down over one little chord in a tune out of a thousand tunes. It doesn't matter. G7#5? Play some whole tones over it, play some altered sounds over it, try a harmonic minor, who cares?

    You've got to relax and see what sounds good to you. It's not worth getting hung up on a whole tune because of one bar. You know it's an A7 with a Bb melody note. That's good enough. It can be b9, 13b9, whatever, try them out.

    It's your rendering of the tune that matters, nobody else's, it's what you make of it.

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Good excuse to learn this one
    Will be interested to hear your thoughts Christian!

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Babaluma -

    The recording's playing an A13b9. You can hear him play the Bb and the F# together. I've looked at various lead sheets and there are lots of varieties of the A7. There's a 7b9, a 7#9, a 13, and a couple of 13b9's.

    It's not the only recording, of course, You Tube's got plenty.

    Look, jazz is fluid. Shorter himself may have brought one version into the studio and the pianist played it differently when it came to recording. Who knows?

    If you don't mind my saying it, you're getting bogged down over one little chord in a tune out of a thousand tunes. It doesn't matter. G7#5? Play some whole tones over it, play some altered sounds over it, try a harmonic minor, who cares?

    You've got to relax and see what sounds good to you. It's not worth getting hung up on a whole tune because of one bar. You know it's an A7 with a Bb melody note. That's good enough. It can be b9, 13b9, whatever, try them out.

    It's your rendering of the tune that matters, nobody else's, it's what you make of it.
    Thanks Ragman! Yes I totally agree, normally I try and focus as you suggest but, as with my Stella post, I get caught up in intricacies. I have to say that because I am self taught I am learning both to play and the formalities of how jazz is communicated at the same time. I think not having a formal education means I get led off into tangents asking "why is this?". So I am focusing on just playing but sometimes I am interested in how jazz is notated as a general interest.

  8. #7

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    Babaluma -

    I think a lot of people are interested in notation. I am too, up to a point. But, of course, it's music and music is sound. Wayne Shorter tunes, and probably some Coltrane, Bill Evans and Miles Davis stuff, are malleable enough to play with. It's not like classical music where everything is set in stone except the interpretation.

    If I can bang on a bit, it's probably about confidence in the end. We need the confidence to change things if we think they're easier for us or want to reharm them. Personally, I do a lot of research on a new tune. I want to hear the lyrics, see how other people have interpreted or changed it, and so on. Then it sort of stews around for a while and eventually some kind of version pops into my head. A week later and it's something different.

    We need the happy confidence to play with things, experiment, learn from them. I think that's the essence of creativity. All that's destroyed when there's a fear of going wrong.

  9. #8

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    Looking at the sheet for Infant Eyes, I've just realised something. It seems A13b9 is the favoured chord but the melody notes in that bar are Bb and F natural, which is the b13.

    So it looks like maybe that chord ought to be just A7b9b13, i.e. just A7alt... but whatever :-)

  10. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Looking at the sheet for Infant Eyes, I've just realised something. It seems A13b9 is the favoured chord but the melody notes in that bar are Bb and F natural, which is the b13.

    So it looks like maybe that chord ought to be just A7b9b13, i.e. just A7alt... but whatever :-)
    Replying to your previous post as well, I totally agree about confidence being a factor! I am not a confident player, I have never been to a jazz jam, every time I make a bit of progress I feel "yeah but maybe I need another 2 years of practice". Despite playing for over 10 years and maybe 5 years focusing on jazz I still feel like a beginner. Nothing like jazz to humble you! I have found since focusing on my ears I have made some break throughs. As you say it is sound in the end so ultimately does it sound good, or at least interesting?

    Re THAT chord, you have proved your point about the malleability and freedom to interpret, if it is b13 after all but Herbie went with a 13th instead on the recording it shows both approaches can work!

  11. #10
    Out of interest are you all feeling it in Bb or Eb? I think Bb overall but I have been using an Eb "home" as initially it seems to fall under my fingers and lead me to interesting places. Of course it goes all over the place but as a starting point.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Babaluma
    if it is b13 after all but Herbie went with a 13th instead on the recording it shows both approaches can work!
    Actually, I've kind of revised that idea since. I think the piano works its way down, sort of A G F#. The 13 sounds very nice, better than the altered sound. The natural F is only a quick pick-up note and doesn't really clash with the 13. So I've gone back to the 13 now! Just goes to show, I suppose.

    Re. confidence, I don't mean self-confidence as in arrogance or ego, I just mean a sort of happy trust, a feeling of being free to learn, experiment, play with things, and discover things. I think that's invaluable, probably in any sphere of life, not just music. Children often have it, they'll try anything.

    But, of course, confidence in ability just comes with familiarity, really knowing a tune backwards, knowing what you can do with it, and so on. But there aren't many tunes like that which impact on me personally. If I was a working pro and had to do gigs it would be different, sheer necessity would impel one to absorb the tunes.
    Last edited by ragman1; 11-19-2020 at 09:47 AM.

  13. #12

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    Re. Infant Eyes, have you recorded anything yet? I gave it a shot last night. I don't know about Bb or Eb because, as you say, it goes all over the place. But it is in Bb so I suppose that dominates in my mind.

    By the way, are you doing chord melody or notes over a backing?

    Because it wanders about the way it does, I admit to using a sort of CST approach. I took each chord by itself and worked out some sounds over it as they appeared to me. In the end it came down to a lot of major scales and a couple of modes - then I basically used the pentatonics for them. Bearing in mind the forward flow of the tune, of course.

    You can have this practice version if you like. It's not polished, just a trial feel I did for myself. I think it needs a lot of work on it. I realised that the melody is diatonic (except for the tritone A over the EbM7 in bar 12) but one doesn't necessarily have to play it that way. It's just a first-go practice experiment. I think it's a bit boring at the moment!

    Last edited by ragman1; 11-19-2020 at 09:46 AM.

  14. #13

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    This might be useful. Incidentally, he's analysed it more or less the same as me. Plays it a bit better, though :-)


  15. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    Re. Infant Eyes, have you recorded anything yet? I gave it a shot last night. I don't know about Bb or Eb because, as you say, it goes all over the place. But it is in Bb so I suppose that dominates in my mind.

    By the way, are you doing chord melody or notes over a backing?

    Because it wanders about the way it does, I admit to using a sort of CST approach. I took each chord by itself and worked out some sounds over it as they appeared to me. In the end it came down to a lot of major scales and a couple of modes - then I basically used the pentatonics for them. Bearing in mind the forward flow of the tune, of course.

    You can have this practice version if you like. It's not polished, just a trial feel I did for myself. I think it needs a lot of work on it. I realised that the melody is diatonic (except for the tritone A over the EbM7 in bar 12) but one doesn't necessarily have to play it that way. It's just a first-go practice experiment. I think it's a bit boring at the moment!

    Thanks for this, sorry have been a bit busy so just saw this. Will have a listen tomorrow when I have some free time to concentrate.

    I did some recording over the chords but now have tried to do a chord melody arrangement but still not quite got it yet. Sometimes I just can't focus and have not found a good spare hour to really engage.

    I saw this video, very interesting and I borrowed a few chord voicings from him!

  16. #15

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    Infant Eyes, chord questions-7436a0f0-6c14-4fc2-9951-55c36a0e45b1-jpg

    In my piano book it’s A7b9 (13). The b13 (#5) is only the 4th note of the melody. I don’t believe that note should rule the entire measure. It’s only a quarter note. The Ebmaj#4 is just that as is Emaj#4. There is no B7. There is only a Bmaj7. This from the perspective of piano.
    Last edited by 2bornot2bop; 11-23-2020 at 03:59 PM.